Brighton Pride, London Theater, Scotland’s Kilts. Would you complete a survey?
One quick thing… Can we ask you to participate in a survey about travel to England, Wales, Scotland, London and other destinations that have recently worked to reach our readers. It won’t take too long and we will not be asking you to fill out the regular annual survey this because of how helpful this would be.
DHv3 is Almost Here – and Here’s More of What You Need To Know!
Hide Image:
Show Image
We are launching the next generation of the Daddyhunt App and website on Monday, and here’s more of what you need to know to be prepared. After we migrate to the new servers and launch the new app and website, your newest messages will load first.
If you are a Premium supporter and have an extensive message history, older messages will load into your Message box over a couple of days. All older messages should be in your Message box by Thursday.
For app users, there’s no need to uninstall the current version of the Daddyhunt App. Once the new app is released in the app stores, you simply need to download it and it will automatically log you in on the new environment. If, however, you quit or uninstall the current version, you will need to login using the email and password associated with your account.
Likewise, for website users, with the new site, you’ll need to login in using email and password for increased security, so if you don’t know the email address associated with your account, please email [email protected] before Monday EST.
If you experience issues accessing your account after the migration, please email [email protected]
LGBTQ World News Digest: 20 International Stories You Need to Know About
KENYA. High court upholds law making gay sex illegal: ‘Same-sex relations have been banned since the British colonized Kenya in the late 19th century. Kenya’s penal code criminalizes “carnal knowledge against the order of nature.” Anyone found engaging in same-sex relationships could face up to 14 years in prison.The Kenyan High Court declined to decriminalize same-sex relations. The decision was a setback to the LGBTQI moment in Africa, where same-sex relationships are largely seen as taboo.’
BRAZIL. Top court votes to protect LGBT people from discrimination: “A majority of the 11-member Supreme Federal Court voted to find it unconstitutional to exclude sexual orientation and gender from Brazil’s anti-discrimination law. After the sixth member voted in favor of the ruling, securing the majority, the court suspended the hearing until June 5. The remaining members are expected to vote then, and the ruling would be issued. It would establish a way for people who experienced discrimination or physical attacks based on their sexual identity or gender orientation to sue.”
CHILE. Gay couple attacked by three men in their own store: “Those affected are Sergio Acosta (25) and José Luis Campos (33), the first being beaten, while the second one was largely detained by one of the victimizers so that he could not defend his partner. The events occurred after one of the three subjects regretted buying a product and requested a change for a lower value, but refusing to return the first ballot that had been delivered. Three men attack gaycouple in their own store: Although the couple reported the incident to Carabineros and reported the homophobic insults, when they were transferred to detention, the subjects were released and with only a 1UTM fine.”
CHINA. Novelist known for gay content sentenced for “illegal publishing.” ‘China’s burgeoning “danmei” novels have hit an obstacle. An author of the genre, which features homoerotic love stories between two men aimed at a young female audience online, has been sentenced to prison for “illegal publishing.” The author, who writes under the name “Mr. Deep Sea,” was sentenced to a prison term of four years and fined 120,000 yuan ($17,350) for printing and selling copies of her online novels without the legally-required official book number, price and publisher’s name. She was first detained in December 2017 while signing copies of her latest self-published novel, “The Caged Emperor.”’
MACEDONIA. First Gay Pride march is on next month: ‘The North Macedonian capital is set to host on June 29 what activists have described as the Balkan country’s first gay-pride parade. The event will be “a form of protest for affirmation, support, and protection of human rights” of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, Antonio Mihajlov of the National Network Against Homophobia and Transphobia (NNHT) told a press conference in Skopje on May 20.’
NORTHERN IRELAND. Thousands rally in support of marriage equality: “Attempts to legislate for same-sex marriage have been blocked by the Democratic Unionist Party, a key ally of British Prime Minister Theresa May, despite opinion polls in recent years showing most in the region are in favor. Sara Canning, the partner of journalist and LGBTQ rights campaigner Lyra McKee who was murdered in April, led the march alongside a number of gay and lesbiancouples. Canning said that she and McKee had been planning to marry.”
TUNISIA. LGBTQ rights group to push for gay sex to be decriminalized: ‘The government went to court to block Shams when the advocacy group registered in 2015, saying that the correct process had not been followed. A 2016 ruling in Shams’ favor was upheld by the Court of Appeal on Monday. Shams’ director Mounir Baatour said the court victory would help its campaign to legalize same-sex relations, which are punishable with three years imprisonment under Article 230 of the North African country’s penal code.’
RUSSIA. 1 in 3 Russians would disown a gay friend, according to study: “The Levada Centre study, published on Thursday, indicated that more than half the population still had a negative opinion on LGBT+. Nearly a third said they would disown a friend if they found out they were gay, while only three percent suggested they had a favourable opinion. On a positive note, the polls showed nearly half (47%) believed LGBT+ people should be treated equally in front of the law. This was the highest number since 2005 (51%), when polling on the question began.”
PHILIPPINES. Congress launches online poll on same-sex unions. ‘The poll, posted on the chamber’s website, asked whether the respondents are in favor, against, or undecided about the proposal on the legalization of same-sex unions as civil partnership in the country. … The survey comes ahead of the celebration of “Pride Month” in June and days after same-sex marriage was legalized in Taiwan. A petition seeking to allow same-sex marriage in the Philippines filed by gay lawyer Jesus Falcis is pending before the Supreme Court. An oral argument on the proposal was held in June last year.’
Head on to the Congress’ website and vote YES for #Equality!
A unos chicos gays en Monterrey, Nuevo León que entraron de la mano al restaurante: Pozole y tacos La regia, les negaron el servicio.
Esto pasó cuando confrontaron al dueño. “Si vienen puteando o de la manita NO les voy a entender”. ¡Brava amigays por no dejarse! pic.twitter.com/7kYuFXP47W
POLAND. Gay couple returns painting stolen by Nazis to Warsaw. “The two men, Craig Gilmore and David Crocker, were recently back in Poland using the connections they gained with their goodwill gesture to reach out to the local LGBT community, offering financial donations and messages of solidarity to a group that faces misunderstanding and discrimination….In early April, with cameras rolling, Gilmore, an opera singer, dropped to one knee in a Warsaw park and proposed to Crocker, an artist, who said yes.”
MOROCCO. How gays are being persecuted just 20 miles from the Spanish border: “Like many others, Youssef is afraid of Article 489 of the Moroccan criminal code, which punishes sexual relations between people of the same sex. Punishments range from six months to three years behind bars and a fine of up to 1,000 dirhams, which is around €100. The judge can decide on the severity of the sentence, taking into account the seriousness of whatever act has been committed and the personal circumstances of the accused. But there are no established mitigating circumstances. The defendants are at the mercy of the judge. According to the Procurator’s 2018 Report, 197 people were arrested for being homosexual in Morocco in 2017. When the report was published last June, there were still 137 cases open.”
Said Rogen: “We do not want people to feel bad when they’re watching our movies. I’ve had people come up to me and be like, ‘That made me feel like sh*t when I was in the movie theater and everyone was laughing about that.’ Like the ‘How I know you’re gay’ thing [from The 40-Year-Old Virgin], it’s something people have been like, ‘It’s not fun to be in the theater when people are laughing at that, knowing what they’re probably actually laughing at.’ And I don’t want anyone to have that experience watching our movies.”
Congratulations to Bill and Laura from New Jersey!
Love is… that spark of electricity between two people. Bill felt it when he met Laura. He writes: “I had been on Zoosk for a month. After some procrastination, I got around to writing my story. Laura and I were each other’s SmartPicks. She reached out to me saying that she liked my story. I wrote back, and shortly
Meet Nyla Rose, the first full-time trans fighter in a major wrestling promotion
“The Native Beast” is ready to put you in a camel clutch and pin you down for the count.
The Constitution Dictates That Impeachment Must Not Be Partisan
Barely two decades since the impeachment of Bill Clinton, the people of the United States again are confronting the possibility that their president, now Donald Trump, could be impeached, meaning charged by the House of Representatives with offenses that, if proved in a Senate trial, would remove him from office.
Not surprisingly, politics have pervaded the debate.
Many, perhaps most, assume that impeachment of a president should be, or inevitably will devolve into a political melee. The few historic examples that exist show political motivations – to varying degrees – in the impeachment proceedings against Presidents Johnson, Nixon and Clinton.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told The Washington Post in March that “impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path.”
Nonetheless, impeachment supporters in the House now number, according to The New York Times, “roughly two dozen.” House and Senate Democratic leaders are facing increased calls by a growing number of colleagues to begin formal impeachment proceedings against President Trump.
Politics now characterize the serious issue of whether Trump has obstructed justice and committed other offenses worthy of his removal from office.
As a scholar of law, I believe that under our Constitution, impeachment – or the decision not to impeach – must not be based on partisan considerations.
Rooted in the Constitution
Some advocates of impeachment have recognized the correct basis to decide whether Congress should investigate and impeach President Trump.
Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania announced in a May 21 press release, “We took an oath to uphold our constitution and the President’s efforts to cover up his acts, and those of his campaign and administration, threaten the foundation of our democracy.”
Leaving aside whether the present record supports an impeachment inquiry against Trump, I believe Warren and Scanlon are right that the decisions whether to impeach and possibly remove any president from office should be rooted in the Constitution itself.
The Framers decided that power as drastic as removing a sitting president should belong to Congress, the branch of government most closely associated with the will of the people.
Rather than leaving impeachment to the Supreme Court or other small, unelected body, impeachment becomes the tool of the national will – not a political will, but rather the national will to respect the Constitution’s neutral legal requirements.
Of course, as the Framers well knew, by its very nature Congress would be, and indeed is, politically partisan. Voters elect members of Congress to enact laws based on those voters’ policy preferences. Inevitably, laws favored by the “majority” may frustrate or even hinder voters whose candidates lost.
Such is the normal “give and take” of democracy.
However, the Constitution clarifies that regarding impeachment, Congress cannot conduct business as usual. Like declaring war, impeachment is one of the rare matters where politics should be utterly inappropriate.
The Constitution’s Article II, Section 4 commands that a president may be removed from office only for “Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
Accordingly, Congress must base its decisions whether to impeach and to remove a president from office on a factual, politically neutral record demonstrating whether the president actually has committed, in the Constitution’s language, “Crimes.”
This plain text tells us that impeachment is not a device by which a disgruntled Congress may negate the voters’ political choice, even if Congress honestly believes a duly elected president’s policies are unsound, reckless or dangerous. Rather, Congress must approach the matter whether a president has committed constitutional “Crimes” as if it were jurors in a courtroom.
Commentators, then, rightly have denounced the seemingly political nature of Clinton’s impeachment and, roughly 130 years earlier, the impeachment of Andrew Johnson.
Offenses against the government
Importantly, history shows that the Constitution’s term “other high Crimes and Misdemeanors” is not limited to actual criminal conduct.
Noted scholars Ronald Rotunda and John Nowak explain that the Framers wisely intended the phrase “or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors” to include undermining the Constitution and similar, “great offenses against the federal government (like abuse of power) even if they are not necessarily crimes.”
For instance, Alexander Hamilton asserted that, while likely to be criminal acts, impeachable wrongdoings “are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men … from the abuse or violation of some public trust.”
And founding father Benjamin Franklin agreed that impeachment is “the best way … for the regular punishment of the Executive when his misconduct should deserve it, and for his honorable acquittal when he should be unjustly accused.”
Thus, out of respect for the democratic process, a president cannot be impeached to promote Congress’ political agenda. Nor should lawmakers avoid impeachment because of perceived political cost.
Rather, given its remarkable gravity, a president should be impeached for conduct that – if committed by any president regardless of political or party affiliations – so taints or corrupts the presidency, he or she must be removed to preserve the integrity of American government.
Thus, the standard for impeachment must be politically neutral. Otherwise, impeachment becomes an illegitimate device to overturn elections.
Trump-Pence Admin Announces Plan to Eliminate LGBTQ Non-Discrimination Protections in Healthcare
HRC responded to the Trump-Pence administration’s latest attempt to undermine the rights and welfare of LGBTQ people and their families. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is proposing a major change to the administrative rule interpreting Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to remove explicit protections for LGBTQ people in healthcare programs and activities by excluding protections from discrimination based on sex stereotyping and gender identity.
“The Trump-Pence administration’s latest attack threatens to undermine crucial non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people provided for under the Affordable Care Act,” said HRC Government Affairs Director David Stacy. “The administration puts LGBTQ people at greater risk of being denied necessary and appropriate health care solely based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Everyone deserves access to medically necessary care and should never be turned away because of who they are or who they love.”
The Department of Health and Human Services is slated to publish the proposed revision of the implementing regulation for Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Friday, May 24, in the Federal Register. The public will have 60 days from then to comment on the proposal. Section 1557 of the ACA prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability in certain health programs or activities. This landmark provision is the first of its kind to include protections from discrimination on the basis of sex in the context of healthcare. The definition of “sex” has been consistently interpreted by numerous federal courts and agencies — including HHS — to include discrimination on the basis of sex stereotyping and gender identity. The Office of Civil Rights at HHS began successfully accepting complaints and enforcing the ACA to protect LGBTQ people since 2012. HHS published a final rule implementing the ACA’s civil rights protections to include discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sex stereotyping in 2016. More than 13,000 HRC members and supporters weighed in on this proposed rule in 2015. As a result of litigation HHS has not been processing claims related to gender identity, sex stereotyping, or pregnancy termination discrimination since 2016.
Fear of discrimination causes many LGBTQ people to avoid seeking healthcare, and when they do enter care, studies indicate that LGBTQ people are not consistently treated with the respect that all patients deserve. Studies show that 56% of LGB people and 70% of transgender and gender non-conforming people reported experiencing discrimination by healthcare providers — including refusal of care, harsh language and physical roughness because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. According to a report, 23% of transgender respondents did not see a doctor when they needed to because of fear of being mistreated as a transgender person and a startling 55% of transgender respondents who sought coverage for transition-related surgery were denied. Delay and avoidance of care due to fear of discrimination compounds the significant health disparities experienced by LGBTQ people.
